Becoming Carole Lombard: Stardom, Comedy and Legacy is a historical critique of the development and reception of Carole Lombard's stardom from the classical Hollywood period to present day. Based on original archival research, Olympia Kiriakou combines theoretically informed textual analyses of Lombard's performances and star image across different media (biographies, publicity materials, photography and film) with a critical engagement of the cultural, economic, social and industrial conditions that shaped her stardom. Sitting at the intersection of feminist film theory, star studies and comedy theory, this work presents Lombard as a case study to challenge the screwball canon and existent academic discourse about female physical comedy and the alleged “delicate” female body. In doing so, it formulates a new historical approach to understanding gender, femininity, and identity in Hollywood comedies of the 1930s. Moreover, this is the first research of its kind to offer a comprehensive understanding of Lombard's stardom beyond her associations with the screwball comedy genre.

As Nick and Nora Charles in the six Thin Man movies from 1934 to 1947, the team of William Powell and Myrna Loy showed that marriage didn’t have to mean the end of the romantic comedy. From the comedic delight that was the initial The Thin Man through its five sequels as well as eight other films (including the Oscar-winning The Great Ziegfeld and Manhattan Melodrama), Powell and Loy were cemented in the public imagination as Hollywood’s happiest married couple. In Becoming Nick and Nora,comedy writer and Hollywood historian Rob Kozlowski follows the winding path that Powell and Loy’s screen personas took over their careers. Studios originally cultivated the two as villains in the silent era: Powell as a mustachioed, swashbuckling fiend and Loy as an “exotic” adversary. With the rise of talkies, the two managed to broaden their range beyond villainous stereotypes, but it took several false starts before they achieved their lasting legacy as Nick and Nora. Packed with behind-the-scenes details and memorable characters, this is a lively look at two tinseltown icons and a film series that remains beloved nearly a century later.

Uninhibited, vivacious, and a startling talent, Carole Lombard was the darling of her day. Her wit and charm made her the social as well as artistic hub around which Hollywood revolved during the '30's. She was years before her time in her sophistication, and her independence established her as an oracle of the New Woman. She was an enchanting beauty and a great artist—the supreme comedienne during the high point of American film comedy. Larry Swindell vividly recreates her career and extraordinary personal life. Her fabled love affair and marriage with Clark Gable are here put into proper focus for the first time. Told by a master chronicler o f the movies, this is a vibrant biography of the hometown girl who became one of greatest stars of Hollywood's golden age.

With this masterful work, Louis A. Pĩrez Jr. transforms the way we view Cuba and its relationship with the United States. On Becoming Cuban is a sweeping cultural history of the sustained encounter between the peoples of the two countries and of t

With this masterful work, Louis A. Perez Jr. transforms the way we view Cuba and its relationship with the United States. On Becoming Cuban is a sweeping cultural history of the sustained encounter between the peoples of the two countries and of the ways that this encounter helped shape Cubans' identity, nationality, and sense of modernity from the early 1850s until the revolution of 1959. Using an enormous range of Cuban and U.S. sources--from archival records and oral interviews to popular magazines, novels, and motion pictures--Perez reveals a powerful web of everyday, bilateral connections between the United States and Cuba and shows how U.S. cultural forms had a critical influence on the development of Cubans' sense of themselves as a people and as a nation. He also articulates the cultural context for the revolution that erupted in Cuba in 1959. In the middle of the twentieth century, Perez argues, when economic hard times and political crises combined to make Cubans painfully aware that their American-influenced expectations of prosperity and modernity would not be realized, the stage was set for revolution.

Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling are virtually unknown outside of Hollywood and little-remembered even there, but as General Manager and Head of Publicity for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, they lorded over all the stars in Hollywood's golden age from the 1920s through the 1940s--including legends like Garbo, Dietrich, Gable and Garland. When MGM stars found themselves in trouble, it was Eddie and Howard who took care of them--solved their problems, hid their crimes, and kept their secrets. They were "the Fixers." At a time when image meant everything and the stars were worth millions to the studios that owned them, Mannix and Strickling were the most important men at MGM. Through a complex web of contacts in every arena, from reporters and doctors to corrupt police and district attorneys, they covered up some of the most notorious crimes and scandals in Hollywood history, keeping stars out of jail and, more importantly, their names out of the papers. They handled problems as diverse as the murder of Paul Bern (husband of MGM's biggest star, Jean Harlow), the studio-directed drug addictions of Judy Garland, the murder of Ted Healy (creator of The Three Stooges) at the hands of Wallace Beery, and arranging for an unmarried Loretta Young to adopt her own child--a child fathered by a married Clark Gable. Through exhaustive research and interviews with contemporaries, this is the never-before-told story of Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling. The dual biography describes how a mob-related New Jersey laborer and the quiet son of a grocer became the most powerful men at the biggest studio in the world.

“Marx Brothers authority Bader has done a remarkable job successfully uncovering the story of the unknown brother, revealing a genuinely complex character. This book is revelatory not just about Zeppo but also about the rest of the Marx Brothers.” - Library Journal Zeppo was the Marx Brother who didn’t want to go into the family business. A juvenile delinquent in his teen years, before joining his brothers on stage, Zeppo balanced two careers: auto mechanic and petty criminal. Even after getting dragged into the world of entertainment—for sixteen years, he did his familial duty as a vaudeville, Broadway, and movie star—he finally made his escape from the Four Marx Brothers. After failed attempts to find steady work in real estate, screenwriting, and the restaurant business, Zeppo finally hit it big as a Hollywood talent agent, representing stars like Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, and Lana Turner. From there, he bred racehorses, owned a manufacturing plant, tried out citrus ranching and commercial fishing, and patented several new inventions. He was, in short, a complex character, and his own family never quite figured him out. Zeppo: The Reluctant Marx Brother gives a lively account of this checkered life and career. As Robert Bader recounts, Zeppo’s lifelong addiction to gambling led him into relationships with several notorious organized crime figures, and he would ultimately appear before grand juries more frequently than movie cameras. (He was certainly the only Marx Brother who saw the corpse of a friend in a newspaper crime scene photo.) Socially, he mixed as easily with mobsters like Mickey Cohen as he did with movie stars like Clark Gable. Comprehensively researched with the full cooperation of Zeppo’s estate, including the first-ever interviews with his two sons, this is a remarkable look at the many lives of Zeppo Marx—even the ones he did his best to keep secret.

Extras, bit players, and stand-ins have been a part of the film industry almost from its conception. On a personal and a professional level, their stories are told in Hollywood Unknowns, the first history devoted to extras from the silent era through the present. Hollywood Unknowns discusses the relationship of the extra to the star, the lowly position in which extras were held, the poor working conditions and wages, and the sexual exploitation of many of the hardworking women striving for a place in Hollywood society. Though mainly anonymous, many are identified by name and, for perhaps the first time, receive equal billing with the stars. And Hollywood Unknowns does not forget the bit players, stand-ins, and doubles, who work alongside the extras facing many of the same privations. Celebrity extras, silent stars who ended their days as extras, or members of various ethnic groups—all gain a deserved luster in acclaimed film writer Anthony Slide's prose. Chapters document the lives and work of extras from the 1890s to the present. Slide also treats such subjects as the Hollywood Studio Club, Central Casting, the extras in popular literature, and the efforts at unionization through the Screen Actors Guild from the 1930s onwards. Slide chronicles events such as John Barrymore's walking off set in the middle of the day so the extras could earn another day's wages, and Cecil B. DeMille's masterful organizing of casts of thousands in films such as Cleopatra. Through personal interviews, oral histories, and the use of newly available archival material, Slide reveals in Hollywood Unknowns the story of the men, women, and even animals that completed the scenes on the silver screen.

Hollywood’s Gene Tierney, the lasting impact of her wartime and postwar films, and her continuing legacy. Gene Tierney may be one of the most recognizable faces of studio-era Hollywood: she starred in numerous classics, including Leave Her to Heaven, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir,and Laura,with the latter featuring her most iconic role. While Tierney was considered one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, she personified "ordinariness" both on- and off-screen. Tierney portrayed roles such as a pinup type, a wartime worker, a wife, a mother, and, finally, a psychiatric patient—the last of which may have hit close to home for her, as she would soon leave Hollywood to pursue treatment for mental illness and later attempted suicide in the 1950s. After her release from psychiatric clinics, Tierney sought a comeback as one of the first stars whose treatment for mental illness became public knowledge. In this book, Will Scheibel not only examines her promotion, publicity, and reception as a star but also offers an alternative history of the United States wartime efforts demonstrated through the arc of Tierney's career as a star working on the home front. Scheibel's analysis aims to showcase that Tierney was more than just "the most beautiful woman in movie history," as stated by the head of production at Twentieth Century Fox in the 1940s and 1950s. He does this through an examination of her making, unmaking, and remaking at Twentieth Century Fox, rediscovering what she means as a movie legend both in past and up to the present. Film studies scholars, film students, and those interested in Hollywood history and the legacy of Gene Tierney will be delighted by this read.

When Carole Lombard was tragically killed in a plane crash on January 16, 1942, she was 33 years old and had been a film actress for almost 20 years, yet her best work probably still lay ahead. She had reached a career high point, earning praise for her talents as a comedienne as well as a dramatic actress. As well liked as she was on screen, she was equally popular off screen, known for being witty, uninhibited and a great party-giver. Blonde and beautiful, she reigned as the queen of Hollywood when she married Clark Gable, its king. This book offers a thorough examination of her too-short life and provides information about her 78 films, including cast and credits, synopses, reviews and comments. Photographs from her life and films complete the work.